“You want me to close the door?” Jeremiah asked her.
“Please. I need to change, too. Thanks!” she said and he shut the door.
She slid out of bed and felt a shiver from the cold marble floor underneath her bare feet. She shook it off and headed for the armoire that Sasha had filled for her with dresses of every design and color. She chose a light blue dress with sashes of white silk around the waist. Then, she slid on a pair of matching slippers below it. It was true. She always wore blue, but it was her favorite color. Tomorrow, she would wear a different color, she promised herself. She washed her face in the washroom and ran the comb through her hair several times until it held the right curl and bounce.
After she had finished getting ready, she made her way out to the dining room, where the others were already seated in front of a rack of lamb with potatoes, salad, peas and beets. She hadn’t really noticed before how stunning the dining room was. The first thing that caught her eye was the height of its ceiling that stretched far up in the air. The walls were adorned with arras and tall mirrors that hung under beautifully arched, stained glass windows. The faint light of dusk was fading outside and a warm fire gleamed cheerfully in the fireplace. Stand lamps, positioned at intervals along the walls, radiated soft light, and the clock on the wall chimed six.
Jeremiah moved her seat back as she approached. Bunejab was next to him. He was seated in a chair that appeared to be specially made for a Chinuk, raised a bit higher than the others. He stared at her and she was suddenly worried that he might insist that she return to bed. To her relief, he did nothing of the sort. Chalice sat down and settled her shoulders into the chair.
“How are you feeling dear?” Sieren asked.
Chalice smiled gratefully. “Really well, thanks to everyone who has taken care of me these past few days.”
“It is good to have you here with us tonight. We have been waiting for you to get better.” She passed Chalice the plate of peas. “Here, would you like to start?”
They all passed around the dishes and filled their plates with the delicious meal that the chef had prepared for them. The conversation was light and mostly focused on the game that they had played that day. Chalice, however, was still curious about what Jeremiah had said regarding ownership of the castle.
“Sieren?”
“Yes?”
“Jeremiah and I were talking about something that we noticed here. Something that is very different from anything we have ever seen.”
Sieren furrowed her brow. “What’s that?”
“Well, your family owns this castle, right?”
“Correct.”
“For a long time?”
“Yes,” Sieren replied and Ben cocked his head to listen. He wondered where she was going with this.
“And yet, you call these apartments Ben’s quarters. Jeremiah told me that you treat the rest of the castle as if it belongs to everybody else, even those who are staying here for only a short period of time. I was just wondering why that is. I know it’s a weird question.”
Sieren smiled warmly as if she had been asked the question many times before. “Because it does belong to them as much as it belongs to us. Officially we own it, but we do not really own it, not in the way you think.”
Chalice frowned in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“You see, to us, we consider ourselves the overseers of the castle and its grounds. We say we ‘own’ it, but it is a different sense of ownership. You have all pretty much grown up under the law of the Naie’Ielian, which assumes that people own the land and everything on it and can do with it as they please, but the natural law, and the law of the Terravail as taught to them by the Chinuka, is that we do not own these things. It is quite the contrary. The land owns us. We and everything we create belong to it. Long after we are all dead and gone, the land will still be here, caring for and nurturing future generations, and not just generations of people, but generations of all the creatures that share this world with us.” Sieren shook her head in disgust. “The Maaldanese are very ignorant to think that they can own anything. They are a very proud and arrogant people. Someday, they will learn the truth.”
“Truth? What truth?” Chalice asked curiously.
Jor cleared his throat loudly. “Darling, maybe we should change the subject.” He was looking at Sieren with a stern expression.
“Oh, I’m sorry. You are right. I get too worked up over this subject.”
Naeren, feeling the awkwardness rising in the room, took the opportunity to redirect the conversation. “Chalice, Kirna says you are interested in seeing the astronomy tower. Am I right?”
“Oh, yeah, I would love to see that.”
“Maybe we will have some time after dinner,” Charleton added.
“That would be great!” Chalice said as Jeremiah and Kirna beamed at her. “What is the astronomy tower? If you don’t mind me asking.”
At this point she was almost afraid to ask too many questions, in case she stumbled upon a topic that they couldn’t discuss, but Sieren answered without hesitation.
“It is the tower room in which we observe and map the star constellations.”
“Star constellations?”
“They are groups of stars in the sky that we observe at night. We are analyzing how they shift in the sky in a constant pattern throughout the year. In fact, it is very fascinating. Through our studies we are beginning to learn that the stars have other shifting patterns that take hundreds of years to cycle.”
“Why?”
“Why do they shift?”
“No, I mean, why do you study them?”
Sieren put down her knife and fork and leaned back slightly in her chair. “Well, the main reason is because we have studied the stars and their motion in the heavens ever since this castle was constructed. It was part of our official curriculum when it was a university. We have, or I should say ‘officially’ that we had many fields of study here, but the origin of this particular discipline started when my family first built the castle over a thousand years ago. They chose this site because of the ruins that lay here. It was obvious that a large fortress had been built here long ago, but they didn’t know who built it, why they built it, or when. So they studied it. They eventually sent out for Readers to come examine the remains. They found that it was older than anyone had thought. They couldn’t place an exact date on it, mainly because our modern calendar is so different, but they believe it was constructed sometime during the Golden Age of the Ancient World.”
Chalice was fixated on Sieren’s words, drinking in everything she said. She found the ancient people to be the most fascinating subject in the world, mostly because no one really knew much about them other than that they existed and were very intelligent. The fact that they had been so powerful and yet did not possess even a shred of the abilities of the people of the New Millennium was amazing to her.
“The only tower that was still complete, apart from a little weathering on the outside, was the astronomy tower. Its style on the outside was the inspiration for the rest of the structure that my family built, with the help of the Musquoni. The Readers made drawings of what the ancient castle had looked like and my family used that as a guide. The astronomy tower, however, only needed a few touch-ups, but other than that, not much was done to it. The tower is significant not just because of that, but also because of the mysterious inscriptions all along the inside wall. They puzzled even the Readers and to this day have not yet been deciphered. It was obvious, however, that they had something to do with the sky and the heavenly bodies that move within it, both at night and during the day. And thus began this unique field of study and why we call it the astronomy tower. The word astronomy literally means star-arrangements.”
“Why do you think it has something to do with the stars? What do the markings say?”
“It’s not really so much what they say as where they are positioned.” Chalice looked confused and Sieren said: “I will show you later. You will understand when you
see it.”
Chalice nodded. “I’m looking forward to it!”
She was so excited to see the tower that she proceeded to wolf down her supper in haste.
Jeremiah frowned. “Hey, slow down there, champ! You’re going to choke yourself.”
“I wanfa getch fo fa fower,” she said with her mouth full of food.
He grinned. “Well, you won’t get there if you choke to death.” She smiled at him and her stuffed cheeks puffed out.
“You look like a crazy chipmunk, Chalice,” Kirna remarked.
“Yeah, a crazy Terravailian chipmunk,” Tycho snorted.
After supper, they rose from the table and Sieren showed them down the corridor to the inner courtyard of the castle. It was enormous. It was surrounded on all sides by walls stretching up as far as the seventh floor. Windows, terraces, and floral arrangements jutted out from them on every side and ivy laced its length. Sieren explained that the inner courtyard had been used for graduation celebrations when the castle was a university, but now was used for festivals and holiday parties for all the guests and servants, and for all those who lived nearby.
“Even the Haeliad,” she said. “This is one of the few places a person can still celebrate the winter holiday and not have to worry about retribution.”
“We celebrate it in Canton … or at least, we did.”
Sieren noted her sadness. “And you will again, I’m sure.”
“Why did Dar’Maalda place a ban on the Haeliad?” Jeremiah asked.
It was Ben who answered this time. “Because the Maaldanese did not participate in it, the original one, the Egress, and they were not guided by the Chinuka the way we were. The Maaldanese came from a different place. No one is sure where as they guard their secrets jealously, but we think it may have been from one of the lost cities.”
“The underground cities?” Chalice asked.
“Yes, that’s what we think, but we have no proof. It is just something we suspect.”
When they had reached the steps that led to the foyer, Chalice noted two marble statues, one of a man and one of a woman, that sat on each side of the entrance. They were large, regal, and statuesque.
“Who are they?” she asked.
“They are my ancestors. They are the two who began this huge project that eventually became Farah Manor, the Cedarwood University.”
“Wow!”
They silently entered into the grand hall where they stood frozen to the spot. If she had thought that the chambers in Ben’s quarters were large, they did not even compare to the grand hall that she saw before her. There were tables lined up in rows on the floor, and great tapestries hanging from the walls, in between tall, arched, stained glass windows. In the front on a dais stood a podium with a long table and seats in the background.
“What is this for?” Chalice asked.
“For castle meetings.” Sieren winked and Chalice understood suddenly that Sieren was still very much running a university without the King’s consent.
“Oh, so where do all the meeting attendants stay?”
Sieren smiled knowingly. “In the chambers that I mentioned before.”
“Oh, I see.” Chalice smiled back at her, thinking of the secret study and bedchamber that she had discovered on the first night.
When they left the Grand Hall, they walked a corridor that led to a doorway. They entered and ascended a long, spiraling staircase. It was much longer, Chalice thought, than the staircase she had been down her first night there.
Finally, when they were all breathless and practically couldn’t manage another step, they entered a huge circular room. Before Chalice had a chance to examine it, Sieren led them up a small set of steps that brought them to the top of the tower. They found themselves on a huge platform with an incredible view of the trees, the castle grounds, and the night sky. It was very dark and the stars shone brilliantly. Chalice felt goosebumps on her arms from the chilly breeze that whistled through the cedar tops.
“They are bright, aren’t they? The moons’ cycles are at the equinox right now. Perfect for studying the heavens,” Sieren explained.
Chalice knew that the lunar equinox meant that each moon was in between its cycle. Neither Chauma nor Maana could be seen at this time. They were both on opposite sides of their world, balancing each other out and leaving a darkness so black, it provided a very small window in which to see the night sky at its best. Large apparatuses sprawled across the middle of the terrace and piqued Chalice’s curiosity.
“Are these the instruments you use to view them?”
“Why of course! We call them lunarscopes. We initially designed them to view the moons, but now we have made them powerful enough to image the entire night sky. Would you like to see?”
Nodding eagerly, Chalice moved forward and placed her eye to the narrow end, as she had seen Ben do with his eyeglass.
CLACK. Starting, Chalice looked to her left and saw Tycho holding on to one end of an instrument, a piece of it lying at his feet. Kirna was shaking her head at him despairingly.
“Oops,” he said sheepishly to Jor who was peering at him through the darkness. Apparently Tycho had been trying to open the lens cap and had dropped it on the ground.
“Here Tycho, let me help you,” Jor said as he moved to pick up the cap. He had been helping Naeren and Charleton, who were using a much larger lunarscope to view the sky on the eastern side of the terrace. The instrument was so big it took three people to turn it.
Chalice smiled and returned to her viewing. Sieren moved the device in a westerly direction and suddenly, Chalice could see, to her astonishment, a small sphere with ovals surrounding it.
“What is it?!”
Sieren smiled. “We just found it. It is different than a star. It is a world, we think, that is similar to our own. We have called upon a couple Readers to come analyze it for us. They are the only ones who may be able to make sense of it.”
This comment sparked Ben’s interest. “Who did you contact, Sieren?”
“We contacted Marcus, who passed on the message. Was that alright?”
Ben nodded. “Of course.”
“Come, let me show you the room below. Really, it is the most fascinating.”
As they re-entered the lower room, Sieren and Ben placed their lamps in the middle of the large circular chamber so they could all see the walls. All around them, in three hundred and sixty degrees, were markings of what looked like groups of dots, in distinct patterns along the wall. Above them, strange inscriptions were etched into the stone. In between the groups of dots, the walls were cut through to the outside in peculiar shapes that Chalice could not make out. As she moved closer to the markings, she could see that each dot was actually made of five lines extending out from a central point forming what appeared to be a star.
“I understand now!” Chalice looked at Sieren. “I see why you said it was obvious that the astronomy tower had something to do with the stars. These are clearly stars.” She pointed to one of the five-spoked symbols.
“Yes.” Sieren nodded.
“This is interesting,” Chalice noted.
“What is?” Ben asked.
“If you draw a circle around this, you get the Star of the Ielierian, like on our coins.” Ben and Sieren glanced at each other instantaneously and then suddenly looked away when Chalice turned her head toward them. It was slight, but she caught it. She realized that she must have touched upon another taboo subject.
Sieren, however, responded to her comment serenely. “Yes, we believe these stars to be constellations that the ancient people recorded and used for various purposes. They were important to them for some reason. We think that these star constellations placed here serve as a clock, or a calendar, or maybe even a map. We’re not sure. You see, the light — when the sun rises in the west and sets in the east at different parts of the year — touches these constellations through the slits in the wall on the opposite side of the tower, illuminating them. It creates an illusion of light
and shadow that forms pictures on the wall. Each picture overlaps its corresponding constellation, connecting the stars in that constellation with light. These pictures don’t make sense to us, though. We don’t know what they signify. We think whoever designed this was trying to tell us something, but since we have lost the ancient tracks of the sun and stars in the sky throughout the year, we will never know what it was.”
“I can see why you think that maybe this was a calendar or a clock but why a map?”
“We believe that at certain points of the year, these constellations could be seen on the horizon just before sunrise or right after sunset, depending on where this spot — the site of our castle — was located in the ancient world in relation to the night sky.”
“Oh, I get it,” Chalice said, “the constellation on the horizon matching the constellation on the wall. It would give you the location of the castle relative to the positions of the stars back when the castle was originally built.” Sieren nodded and Chalice continued: “So these groups of stars, have you found their location in the night sky?”
“That’s what I asked her,” Jeremiah said.
Sieren smiled. “I don’t mind answering it again. For some, Chalice, we think we know their location, but for others, it is very difficult because there are so many stars in the sky, it is hard to tell where these constellations fit. They could fit in literally thousands of different places.”
“It’s like a huge jigsaw puzzle.”
“Exactly, and what makes it even more difficult is that we are just now learning that these star patterns shift in cycles that last hundreds of years. We can’t be sure if that was also the case back then, either.”
“How do you know that?” Chalice asked.
“Because my family has mapped and measured them for over a thousand years,” Sieren said.
“That’s a lot of work!”
Sieren nodded. “It is.”
“So why—” Chalice broke off when Ben cleared his throat.
“We should be getting back,” he said. “If you want, Chalice, you can come back and study astronomy here, but right now we have to go over our plans for Chainbridge. Sorry, but we have more pressing issues at the moment.”
The Raie'Chaelia (Legend of the Raie'Chaelia, Book One 1) Page 23
